YES BANK wins National Tourism Award for ‘Most Responsible Tourism Project/Initiative’

YES BANK, India’s fifth largest private sector bank, has won the ‘Most Responsible Tourism Project/Initiative’ at the National Tourism Awards 2014-15’instituted by the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. YES BANK is the FIRST bank to receive the prestigious National Tourism Award, for its unique ‘Edge of India’ initiative, which focuses on developing cooperative tourism models to ensure livelihood security of local communities. The award was bestowed by the Chief Guest Sumitra Mahajan, Hon’ble Speaker, Loksabha and Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Hon’ble Minister of State (IC) for Tourism and Culture.

Rana Kapoor, Managing Director & CEO, YES BANK and Chairman YES Institute, said, “YES BANK is honoured to be the first Bank to receive the prestigious National Tourism Award from the Government of India, for its unique ‘Edge of India’ initiative which is focused on developing cooperative tourism models to ensure livelihood security of local communities. This significant national recognition further inspires us to continue working closely with the Government, industry, local communities and all stakeholders in the Tourism value chain to create an enabling policy environment to fully unlock India’s Global Potential in Tourism - an engine of economic growth and job creation.”

The award winning ‘Edge of India’ initiative is a community tourism initiative, run by a network of co-operative Destination Management Organisations (cMDO), which aims to deliver sustainable socio-economic development through capacity building of rural communities.  Under this initiative, the cDMOs offer access to lesser-known parts of rural India through home-stays and itineraries offered visitors/travellers/tourists an authentic community experience. Queen Margaret University (Edinburgh), Dunira Strategy (Edinburgh) and eZone had also partnered with YES BANK for the project.

The project has been carried out in four villages - Bageshwar, Ranikhet and Pithoragarh Districts of Uttarakhand and Purulia in West Bengal. The Project helps to realize the potential of heritage and set up tourism businesses through a cooperative model to ensure that the benefits percolate to the entire community. The communities get trained and assisted in creating a self-sustaining tourism business model.

YES BANK, India’s only Greenfield bank, under its differentiated ethos of Knowledge Banking and strategy of becoming the Best Quality Bank of the World in India, has identified and promoted strategic sunrise sectors including Tourism, Food and Agri-Business, Healthcare, Life Sciences, Media & Entertainment among others. In the past years, YES BANK has released key Knowledge Reports dealing with tourism promotion, including ‘Towards Sustainable Spiritualism: Buddhist Tourism – Linking Cultures, Creating Livelihoods’ (with ASSOCHAM); ‘India: A Global Tourism Powerhouse’ (with PHDCCI) and the ‘YES BANK Haryana State Tourism MAP’ (with Govt. of Haryana).

Last year, Kapoor, was honoured by the Pacific Area Travel Writers Association (PATWA) for ‘Lifetime Contribution to Promotion of Indian Tourism’ and inducted into the PATWA Hall of Fame, while YES BANK, was conferred with the ‘PATWA International Award for ‘Best Tourism Friendly Bank’; at the ITB Berlin (Internationale Tourismus-Börse, Berlin), which is the world’s largest tourism trade fair. YES BANK was also honored with the ‘Best Bank for Promoting Tourism’ Award by ASSOCHAM at the 9thInternational Conference-cum-Awards on Civil Aviation & Tourism in June this year.